Alrighty! Here I am, back and refreshed and on a regular work schedule again. First, the final set of stats:

Number of Times I Was Late to Class / Meetings: Remarkably, Three. I'm a little dazed about this, but I think I finally have a theory that explains it. My tardiness comes from a persistent tendency to underestimate how long it takes me to get from Point A to Point B (this is true of more than geography). At Clarion West, it was impossible to underestimate the amount of time it took to get to the classroom, since it was down one flight of stairs from my bedroom.

It also helped to know that at most I only had to make it through two hours, tops, before a break gave me access to food, or coffee, or a toothbrush, or whatever I'd neglected to grab before taking my seat in class at nine o'clock. And I only had to manage four hours of alertness before I could crawl back into bed if I needed to.

So why, under such felicitous circumstances, was I ever late at all?

On one occasion I was doing dishes and lost track of the time. The other two happened when my stories had to be pried from my grip before submission...[insert dreamy flashback effect here]...

Week Six, the day my story is due, 8:57 AM. I'm sitting cross-legged on my tiny little dorm bed, blanket wrapped around my shoulders, hunched over my laptop. I've been at the story for days and all of the previous night, but instead of getting better, it just gets longer. I'm frantically adding hand-written corrections from the manuscript to the file when there's a mild tapping on the door.

"Yes?" No answer. "Yes?" Still no answer. My bed is right by the door, so I lean over and push the door open. I stare blearily up at Cat, who tells me that Neile wondered where my story was (I suspect Neile actually used her super nifty Clarion West Administrator powers to predict and forestall a meltdown). Cat is the perfect emissary: calm and fearless, and perhaps informed of the previous occasion when I was a touch tetchy with the wonderful, wonderful Kris (well-yes-I-know-it's-nine o'clock-of-course-I-know-it's-nine o'clock). This time I try to play it cool, and just say, "Okay, thanks." Cat leaves, closing the door behind her.

I immediately have second thoughts about playing cool. "Caaaat?" No answer. I push the door open and poke my head out. "Caaaat?" She turns around and comes back.

"Yes?"

"My story isn't done. What do I do?"

"Turn it in." She does an admirable job of sounding comforting, and not exasperated.

I am so utterly demoralized by my story that I'm relieved to follow any clear course of action, particularly one from someone as levelheaded as Cat. "Okay," says my tiniest, most pathetic voice.

Five minutes later I was in class. Unhappy and unwashed, but present.

Number of Oh-My-God-I-Need-a-Drink Moments: Lost Track in Week Five. The majority, I should note, were Idiot Frat Boy / Alley Traffic related.

Number of Drinks Consumed in Said State: Two, the most significantly impairing following a Frat Traffic incident. In general, I didn't drink much, in part because I was too tired for it.

Number of Times I Use My Yoga Mat: Nine. Shoulda done more.

Overall Caffeine Intake Level: Medium. In fact, I consumed far less caffeine than I expected to, which was good, because I was able to hold some of its boost in reserve for dire occasions (see flashback above).

Overall Sleep Deprivation Level: Ah, now here's the thing...I was able to get enough sleep to stave off severe caffeine dependence, but the sleep I got was too intermittent to be of the best quality. So I rarely experienced the kind of sleep deprivation I'm used to (up to a week at time followed by catch up) and the effects thereof (alternating blurriness and euphoria). Instead, there was constant, low-grade not-quite-rightness. This was, however, counteracted by the glorious presence of Joni (see Blood Sugar, below).

Number of Occasions I Had a Low-Blood Sugar Temper Tantrum: Amazingly, Zero. This was due the stabilizing influence of Joni, who made us the most spoiled Clarion West class on record by providing -- unexpectedly -- lunch four days a week. Lunch is the meal I'm most likely to forget or delay, often until I'm suddenly transformed into Janesaurus Wrecks. This is my one recommendation to Clarion West administration: find a way to keep the lunch option. I strongly suspect this went a long way toward making the Class of 2005 such a productively unfussy bunch, and probably prevented at least one fist fight, and certainly many sharp words. Without the salad bar, I would have had to spend a lot more of my time apologizing.

Homicidal Tendencies: Almost purely Frat-directed.

Number of Stories I Critiqued: One Hundred One. And I was a slacker -- several of my colleagues had the stamina to critique extra stories.

Number of Stories Written: Six. Seven if you count the bit of zombie flash in Week Three. Seven and half if you count the lesbian vampire story I started for an anthology (several CWers wrote submissions for this) but didn't finish because I actually started to get really into the plot, and decided I couldn't do it justice before the deadline.

So here's how my stories break down:

- Two that can be fixed up with a minimal effort and can probably find a home somewhere
- Two that wouldn't take much effort to spruce up, but probably aren't sellable just yet
- Three that need a lot of work, but I'm keen on them so the work will in fact get done

Which brings me to...the future! My first set of tasks are rewriting the synopsis of my novel, revising the novel to include Clarion West-acquired improvements in technique, and revising the two most promising stories I wrote there. I also have two story ideas I haven't drafted yet, one of which I expect to be a quickie at less than a thousand words. And the critique goes on: several CWers have already posted new stories to our group, and I look forward to reading them.

Back to work!